At the
Movies Dancing Fools
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
Back when talkies were still a
novelty, Sam Taylor (my uncle) directed Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in
Shakespeares Taming of the Shrew and was immediately
ridiculed by the critics. This was because the title credits included the line,
Additional dialogue by Sam Taylor. In view of the freedom taken in
adapting the Bard today, I doubt that anyone would notice.
Kenneth Branagh is a proven Shakespearean actor-director, and the
memory of 1993s Much Ado About Nothing made me anticipate
first-rate entertainment from his new Loves Labours Lost.
This early Shakespearean comedy calls for a free approach in any movie
adaptation since its pleasure derives largely from the witty, euphuistic
debates between the King of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola) and his cronies and the
Princess of France (Alicia Silverstone) and her ladies in waiting.
The plays premise is that the King and his friends swear to
devote three years to the study of philosophy, during which they will avoid the
company of women. This is obviously an oath that will soon be broken, and
Berowne (Branagh) argues strongly against it before reluctantly signing the
pact.
As director, Branagh arbitrarily sets the action in an imaginary
Navarre of the 1930s and cuts large hunks of the text to make room for song and
dance routines. Since the music is that of Jerome Kern, the Gershwins and
Irving Berlin, this is a pleasant conceit; the only trouble is that the
performers are not very good singers or dancers.
More surprisingly, Branagh hasnt insisted on high standards
of Shakespearean performance from his handsome cast. Admittedly, the poetic
conceits are tightly packed and the lines complex, but Alicia Silverstone is
particularly beyond her depth.
The low comedy material, which was disappointing in Branaghs
Much Ado About Nothing, is more successful this time, with Timothy
Spall as the braggart Don Armado and Nathan Lane as the clown Costard. The
production even finds a pretext for Lane to perform Theres No
Business Like Show Business in top hat and tails.
Although Loves Labours Lost is acceptable
summer fun, it blows up its escapist illusions with newsreel reminders of
armies mobilizing, and a penultimate sequence with battlefield shots of World
War II. Even the most restrained presentation of such a reality makes it hard
to savor the sweet melancholy of its final number, They Cant Take
That Away From Me.
Every year longtime New York
Times columnist Russell Baker used to confess that he had failed to finish
Marcel Prousts mammoth novel Remembrance of Things Past. I suspect
he never did, but now he and many others can achieve cultural respectability in
two hours and forty minutes by going to Time Regained, an adaptation of
the books seventh and last volume. Since the distinguished Chilean-born
director, Raúl Ruiz, has a reputation for surrealism, Time
Regained is a must-see for the smart crowd. I failed the sophistication
test by frequently getting bored. Part of the problem is that I dont want
to go to aristocratic parties in the Faubourg St. Germain every night.
By starting with an asthmatic, dying Proust (Marcello Mazzarello),
the movie gives no sense of narrative development and barely hints at the most
captivating memories of childhood. Although Proust picks up some photographs
and identifies a few faces, those unfamiliar with early volumes of the novel
will have no sense of the complex experiences associated with these people.
However, young Marcels first sight of Gilberte (Emmanuelle Béart)
clipping roses in a garden is genuinely memorable, and a scene that shows him
as a child playing with his magic lantern is enchanting.
Even mystified non-Proustians should enjoy kaleidoscopic glimpses
of the beau monde, especially since Ruiz humorously underlines its
superficiality and hypocrisy. At a high-class funeral Madame Verdurin
(Marie-France Pisier) loses an earring, and mourning gives way to a confused
poking at the ground. Prousts friend Robert de Saint-Loup (Pascal
Greggory), back from the front during World War I, chews his steak viciously as
Marcel sits opposite him fasting. There are frequent examples of snobbery by
rich and titled people who are revealed as vulgar.
The only thing to do is to accept the movies invitation to
wander around at elegant parties as Proust does, picking up odd snatches of
gossip and guessing at developing assignations. Unfortunately, champagne will
not be served in the theater.
One would need to see Time Regained more than once to
appreciate Ruizs shimmering images of simultaneous time, or how he makes
his characters seem to take flight or turn to stone. Moments of poetry appear
without warning: a burst of childish laughter, the notes of a sonata, a window
opening on the sea. More surprising is the way Ruiz forces us to recognize that
the largely frivolous life depicted in this film is taking place not far from
the obscene slaughter of battle.
But all this doesnt help us appreciate the illusion -- and
ultimately disillusion -- with which Proust regarded his life, nor the
suffering (to say nothing of the genius) that enabled him to create the work
that justified his existence. The true paradises, he says in the
film, are those we have lost. In Time Regained,
unfortunately, his discovery of the importance of his book seems merely part of
the endless fragmentation of refined nihilism.
Small Time Crooks is minor
Woody Allen, but thats better than Woody as Ingmar Bergman, or telling us
why the artist should not be judged by the same standards as you and I. He can
deliver a good script with lots of laugh lines, and todays best comic
performers want to be in his movies, so unless you wont settle for
anything less than Annie Hall or Broadway Danny Rose,
this is one of the few movies so far this summer worth catching.
Woody is Ray Winkler, an inept thief who has done time, where
hes met three prisoners dumb enough to join him in an absurd scheme. They
rent a store in order to use its cellar to blast a tunnel into a nearby bank.
Their failure is good low comedy, but Allens loyal wife Frenchy (Tracey
Ullman), a former topless dancer, meets with such wild success selling cookies
in the store they had only thought of as a cover that they have to hire her
dim-witted cousin (Elaine May) to handle the crowd.
Cookie wealth encourages Frenchys ambitions, and she is soon
being tutored by David (Hugh Grant), a smarmy art dealer who believes she will
be a major donor once he introduces her to culture. Frenchy is a
delightfully naive social climber, but Ray doesnt get much pleasure out
of his Louis XIV or XV or whatever he is furniture; he wants to
retire to Miami and eat pizza. Of course, what the movie is really satirizing
is the pretentiousness of snobs.
What makes Small Time Crooks work are lots of fast
one-liners, well-executed running gags and assured comic performances from all
the main characters.
The relaxed charm of Small Time Crooks may represent a
calculated decision to appeal to a broader audience, and even includes an
ending that celebrates the permanent values of marriage. But not to worry:
Woody isnt ready yet to join the Moral Majority. Just relax and observe
the zany clothes Frenchy and Ray try on during the course of the film, or the
wide-eyed intensity with which Elaine May gives a full account of the
days weather at the fanciest Manhattan cocktail parties. The
latters performance alone is worth the price of admission.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie
reviewer.
National Catholic Reporter, June 30,
2000
|